


and I will Kneel at your Feet

by lc2l



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-15
Updated: 2011-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:46:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lc2l/pseuds/lc2l
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>'The angel is kneeling on the floor, the gold chains tight enough that they cut into his wings.'</i></p><p>SERIOUS WARNING FOR GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND TORTURE. I MEAN IT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and I will Kneel at your Feet

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [](http://cookie57.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cookie57**](http://cookie57.dreamwidth.org/) for betaing!

The angel is kneeling on the floor, the gold chains tight enough that they cut into his wings, staining white feathers a dark red. His head is bowed, his hands clasped tight in prayer, as though anyone could hear him down here.

"Asking your God for help?" Adam scorns, making a show of looking all around the small room. "Doesn't look like He's coming. Shame, I'm sure I could find a few choice words for Him."

Kris raises his head and smiles. He's been here long enough that the expression is familiar, warm and comforting with no trace of pain or anger. "Adam," he says, transparently happy. "You came back today."

Why would he be happy? He has no reason to be happy, just like he has no reason to smile or pray and it's unsettling. "I said next time I came I'd torture you until they could hear your screams up in Heaven." And he hasn't been putting it off. No way. He's just been busy, that's all, and he has to be in the right mood to come here because Kris _smiles_. "You think your God will care? Did you mention that in your prayers?"

Kris unclasps his hands, placing them carefully on the ground either side of his denim-clad knees. "Would you like me to stand?"

Angels shouldn't wear denim, shouldn't wear faded jeans with a plain leather belt like they were just people. When Adam's men—demons—had found Kris, he'd been on earth wearing a plaid shirt. They had stuck him with pins until his wings emerged, stripped off his top and chained him down before dragging him to Adam like dogs looking for a treat.

"I'm going to torture you," Adam repeats, watching Kris's calm smile and wondering how the hell Kris still doesn't get it. "What do you think about that?"

Kris apparently decides he isn't going to be asked to stand and moves his hands to his lap. The chains clank every time he shifts. "Whatever makes you happy."

Adam almost shouts 'it's not about making me happy,' but bites down on his tongue just in time. That's what Kris wants, clearly. He wants Adam to doubt himself and show weakness and it's not going to happen. "I'm going to enjoy hearing you scream to your God. I wonder how many sessions it'll take for you to realise he's never going to come." Adam crouches so he can touch Kris's face. His skin is warm and unnaturally soft. "The only person you should be screaming to is me."

Kris turns his head so Adam's fingers brush across his lips. "You only have to ask." His lips are soft and damp, parting very slightly so with one push Adam could slip a finger inside. Kris's brown eyes watch him closely, still holding that smile.

Adam jerks away, almost falling over backwards as he breaks eye contact. "I have to get something," he says, trying to think of anything he can fetch so Kris doesn't realise he's lying. "I want you to sit here imagining the worst pain you can and multiplying it tenfold. Then pray to your God and see if he hears you." Adam pushes Kris hard, sending him sprawling to the floor with a clank of chains. He manages to elicit a gasp through clenched teeth as the metal digs further into Kris's wings and crows silently in triumph. If Kris does feel pain, this is going to be easy. Adam stands up and walks to the door in a swirl of dark coat and bright flames.

"I'm not praying for me," Kris says and in spite of himself Adam stops, turning back to see Kris rolling awkwardly back onto his knees. Kris's brown eyes are boring into him full of—of all the ridiculous things—pity. "I'm praying for you."

Adam slams the door shut behind him.

*

"You stole one of my souls."

Kris raises his head from his clasped hands. Both his eyes are blackened, his lip and cheeks are split open and the burns across his chest are being rubbed raw by the chains on his wings. His smile at the sight of Adam, however, is undiminished. "I spoke to a young boy who would've killed himself within the week and introduced him to the Trevor Project. If you didn't get him, I suppose it worked. Thank you for telling me."

Kris wouldn't have known. Adam's demons picked him up the moment the boy let Kris help him down from the bridge and pulled him into a hug—Kris kissing him once on the cheek—before he turned to walk home. Kris had been distracted watching him walk away, that was what had given Adam's demons time to strike. Adam shouldn't have told him, but Kris is smiling brighter and he can't quite bring himself to regret it.

"If you hadn't stopped to help him, you'd be free right now," Adam reminds him, driving his foot into the worst burn on Kris's chest to prove that he doesn't care. "Do you wish you'd never done it?"

Kris touches his palm lightly to the spot Adam kicked, his breath hitching and his face briefly twisted in pain. "No," he says, calm and measured as ever. "Not in the slightest." He takes his hand from his chest and clasps them again in front of him.

Adam laughs coldly, reaching out to slap Kris's hands hard with the flat of his palm. "Are you still praying for me?"

Kris's fingers spasm and he lets out a tiny gasp. "I remember when you were an archangel," he says, eyes dropping from Adam's face. "I saw you in Heaven, you were beautiful then."

Adam slams his foot down on Kris's hands, pinning them between his boot and the floor, slowly transferring more of his bodyweight until something cracks. "Leave it out, angel."

Kris closes his eyes for a moment, his breathing rough. "You're more beautiful now," he says. "More true to yourself. It suits you."

Adam barks a laugh because no angel would ever think his black hair, piercings and tattoo were anything but horrific imperfections. He lifts his foot, then slams it down again, hard, breaking at least three of Kris's fingers. "Are you allowed to say that about me?" he mocks.

Kris lifts his hands, slowly straightening the fingers he can still move and using those to hold the broken ones straight. "Prop 8 was their side's idea, Adam. Not ours."

The casualness of it sends Adam over the edge, enough that he snatches the poker from the fire and forces the burning tip against Kris's cheek. "Did you miss the part where I Fell?" he demands, over the smell of burning flesh. "I'm not on your side anymore."

He tugs the poker away, seeing the ugly red mark it's left on Kris's skin. Kris is breathing slowly, his whole body tensed up and trembling, but he turns his face slowly to give Adam access to his other cheek. "You could be," he says. "I'm here to save you."

No. No no no. He's here because Adam has a fucking out of control team of disgusting fucking demons who want his favour for whatever twisted reason so they bring him toys and pets that they pick up and Kris happened to get in their way.

Adam Fell. He Fell and he's here now, he's in a good position and he has everything he could ever want.

Adam presses the poker hard against Kris's bare cheek and the angel lets out an involuntary whimper of pain. "I'm not the one who needs saving."

*

Adam heats coals red hot and forces Kris to hold them in his hands. He tattoos demonic markings onto Kris's arms. He finds a set of long pins and presses them through Kris's chest, driving them through his heart.

Sometimes he lets some of his demons sit in, they watch and cackle every time Kris cries out or winces. More often, he leaves them to listen in at the door and has to keep coming up with new methods to cause pain until they get bored and leave.

Kris never looks away from him, never gets angry and never asks for help. He doesn't beg or plead. Whenever Adam tries to intimidate him with talk about what he's going to do next, Kris just smiles and says "Whatever makes you happy."

Nothing about this makes Adam happy. Kris's eyes are never accusing but Adam starts to think maybe _that's_ the accusation. Kris is all smiles, polite words and it's driving Adam crazy and maybe that's the point.

He spends three hours dropping acid onto Kris's eyes, leaving them red and steaming. When the last demon stops listening in, he slumps on the floor and rests his head in his hands. Kris is watching him with a sad smile. Steam drifts from the corners of his eyes like tears.

"Stop judging me," Adam says, and it's supposed to snap but he's so tired it comes out more like pleading.

"I'm not judging," Kris says. "I'm forgiving you."

He makes it sound so easy.

*

"You used to sing," Kris says. He's lying on his stomach, whip wounds bleeding across his arms and back, the area where his wings meet his skin raw and broken up. He's not smiling, but he's not afraid either. He's just resting his chin on his arms and looking at Adam with a mixture of sadness and pity. "I remember."

Adam looks down at the red-stained whip in his hands. He's being doing this for two hours already, Kris screaming obligingly and the whip cracks echoing loud enough for the demons outside the door to hear. It's been long enough, surely. Adam throws the whip onto his desk and sits down. "I don't remember you at all."

If he was hoping for a reaction, he would've been disappointed. "You used to sing the morning song and people said the sun woke up just to listen and the moon cried the stars because it could not hear." He reaches up with one hand to wipe blood off his eyebrow before it can drip into his eye. "I used to stay up all night so I could get to the main square before anyone else to listen."

Adam can still remember all the words to that song. Kris's wings are more red than white now, the feathers sticky beneath Adam's fingers. "They don't sing down here," he says. He shouldn't even want to, shouldn't trace the wounds on Kris's back and wish he could sing the song once, to see Kris smile.

"They sing up there," Kris says, and he doesn't mention Adam's hand so Adam doesn't take it away. "If you came home with me, you could sing again." He hums softly under his breath. "I can't remember the words to the morning song, you'd have to remind me."

Adam presses his fingers harder into Kris's back, feeling Kris flinch as his muscles tense up. "You're not going home, Kris, and I'm certainly never going with you." He moves his fingers back to Kris's wings, touching softly again as Kris relaxes. "You've been here a month. They want to know why I haven't killed you yet."

Kris's wings are warm, in spite of the cuts, and the few clean feathers are soft. "Tell them you're keeping me for my charming personality."

Sometimes, Adam wonders why he hasn't killed Kris yet. "It's not funny."

Kris rolls onto his back—it'll stain the carpet, Adam thinks—and sits up, resting his hands on his knees.

"I've never kept anything this long," Adam elaborates. "If I don't kill you soon, someone else will and they'll expect me to be happy about it. Every time I go out, people are asking why you're still alive."

Kris doesn't seem to blink as much as most people, which renders him fully capable of giving Adam an even stare that lasts until Adam is forced to look away. "So why am I?" he asks.

Adam doesn't have a reply.

*

The bucket of water is stained red before Adam is halfway through cleaning Kris's back. There's no longer the slightest chance that the carpet will survive, Adam has already put in a request for a replacement to be fitted the moment the angel is out of his office.

The clerk had asked when that would be and Adam had mumbled a bit until the demon gave up and told him to send a message as soon as the body had been dumped. Adam should do it soon, really. His carpet is starting to smell and the demons barely bother to listen at the door at all anymore.

"If you'd just Fall," Adam says, cleaning the cuts on Kris's lower back as best as he can with the bloody water. "We wouldn't have to do this anymore. I could call a demon, you could make a deal. Then you'd be like me, you could work with me, and I wouldn't have to worry all the time that someone was going to come in here and kill you."

"You worry about me?"

Adam bites his tongue and squeezes cold water onto the back of Kris's neck, making him shiver all over. "You wouldn't have to keep looking at the door—don't think I haven't seen—wishing you could go home."

Kris rolls onto his back which means Adam is leaning over him, their face barely a foot apart. Kris reaches up slowly, brushing Adam's hair behind his ear with a slow touch that follows the curve of Adam's skin, hesitating briefly on the black stud pushed through the lobe. "I could go home any time I want," he lies.

Adam moves so he's straddling Kris's waist. Kris's fingers are warm on Adam's skin, his eyes full of promises and secrets that Adam wants to learn. He's been down in hell for weeks now and shows no sign of weakness, he still prays when Adam isn't there and smiles at Adam no matter what implement Adam brings to hurt him.

Adam has been in Hell a long time, he's never looked forward to coming home at the end of the day before. "You can't," he says. "I'm going to keep you."

Kris raises his eyebrows. "You can't keep me down here forever."

"I can make sure he won't take you back," Adam promises, and leans in.

Kris's lips are slightly parted, as though he's about to reply, which makes it easy for Adam to slide his tongue inside, their lips pressing together and Kris's mouth opening easily to accept him. Kris's fingers slide further into Adam's hair; Adam drops the dripping sponge onto the carpet so he can press both hands to Kris's skin.

Kris tastes of sunlight, rainbows and second chances. Adam knows he must taste of blood, iron and screams but Kris doesn't recoil, just arches up against Adam, the chains pressing against Adam's thighs.

His jeans come off far better than Adam's leather trousers. His low gasp of wonder when Adam slips off his coat and lets his black wings spread above him is worth more than every cry of pain from every victim Adam has ever had.

His fingers are soft against Adam's feathers, his lips softer on Adam's cock.

"If you can leave any time you want," Adam says—much later—lying on the floor of his office with Kris curled against him, the chains cold against Adam's skin and Adam's wings wrapped around them both. "Why are you still here?"

Kris turns his head a little to kiss the side of Adam's neck. "I'm here to save you."

*

Adam flies. He can't even remember the last time he flew—the flames from the pits singe his feathers and—sure—the soot turning them black means they go with his hair, but it also stings and too much of a build up means he's just as likely to trip on his face as fly.

Being blasted up by hot air rising from the flames of a million souls burning is nothing like spiralling upwards on a cool breeze anyway. He's not missing out on anything except for speed.

Speed is what he needs now, though. His wings are as stretched as they'll go, the black hiding them well against the walls of the cavern, and he's praying—no... hoping—that he's still fast enough to outrun them. Pra- _hoping_ that when his hands hit the door of his office, breaking through it in one smooth movement and landing in a dive roll on the floor, wings tucking in tight to his bare back, that when he looks up he will see—

Kris raises his head from his clasped hands. The burns on his cheeks are starting to scar, the welts on his shoulders scabbing over. Adam stands up, crossing over to him without hesitation, grabbing at the chains and pushing them aside so he can get a better look at the wings beneath. The bones are bent to the wrong angles and there are deep welts where there should be feathers.

Adam glances up at the ceiling and, fuck it, prays to God—if God deigns to listen to someone like him—that Kris can still fly. "You have to leave."

Where did he put the key to the chains? Somewhere in this room because Kris never looked so it didn't matter that he could have found them anytime. Damn it, they'd brought him Kris and he'd told them to just chuck the angel on the floor. He's examined the chains, they'd pushed the small gold key into his hand and he had—he had—

"Leave?" Kris says.

Adam crosses to the desk and starts tugging open the drawers, breaking the locks without a thought. "There are demons coming to kill you. They heard you were still alive and they thought it would be good sport. You have to get out of here, go back up to Heaven, tell them I forced you or whatever it takes to get back in."

Kris pushes himself to his feet. "Adam—"

Naturally that's when the three demons—each twice Adam's height which means they positively tower above Kris—materialise in the doorway. One is holding a hammer, one a sword, the third a flaming whip.

"So this is the pet," the first says, a snake tongue flickering on every S, turning it into a low hiss. "He's pretty, I suppose. Prettier now our angel has got his claws in." He licks his lower lip, bulging eyes travelling over Kris's ruined skin. "I think we should put it out of its misery, do you agree, brothers?"

Adam reaches for Kris's wrist, closing his fingers on rough tattoos, shredded skin and a cut so deep he can feel the bone. "Mine," he says in a growl.

The demon with the whip flashes golden eyes, red arcs of light curved over its shoulder in a parody of Adam's wings. Its nose is hooked like a beak, hair rising like plumage above its head. Adam has dealt with this one before, and come off worse for it. "It's been yours for two months now, brother. Surely even you would agree that it's someone else's turn." He crosses the room at impossible speed, reaching up to run a talon across Kris's cheek, beads of blood welling up in its wake. "If you wanted to kill it, you should've done it by now."

Adam tugs Kris back, out of the demon's reach. If he can get hold of the snake demon's sword, he can use it to cut the chains and the time the three demons spend killing him might be long enough for Kris to get away. It might.

Kris tugs his hand free. "I want to make a deal," he says.

For a moment, Adam is too preoccupied with thoughts of how to get the sword to register what Kris said.

The bird demon dropped its talons, cocking its head to the side. "What kind of deal?"

Kris takes one confident step forward. "The type where I give you the names and locations of every angel currently on earth, and in return you give me amnesty, my own team and a position in Hell."

The demon takes half a step back, seeming suddenly smaller. "I'm not the person to speak to about—"

"So find the person," Kris says and if Adam didn't know better he'd say Kris was growing, the rough tattoos becoming darker on his skin and merging into the cuts like it's all some kind of macabre body art. "And tell them to find me."

Kris looks infinitely more demonic than the creature crawling before him, creating pathetic light patterns to try and make itself look more like an angel. Adam can't see his face, but whatever Kris is showing, it's making all three demons cower down.

"Yes," the bird demon whispers. "Yes, of course, I will." It drops into a half bow then turns to grab it's companions and flee.

Kris slumps a little and turns to face Adam, the old smile back on his face, the marks on his arms back to just cuts and rough black lines. He's smaller than Adam, the way he always has been; his hair's messy and he couldn't scare a fly.

"You need to leave," Adam says. "Before they come back."

Kris shrugs his shoulders with a clank of chains. "Then you need to agree to come with me."

"I can't," Adam shouts, and doesn't mention that maybe Kris can't either anymore, maybe Adam fucked that up too and now Kris is going to have to Fall or die—the same choice Adam made except Kris is never going to choose Fall.

Kris steps forward, reaching up to touch Adam's face. "Whatever your sins, I forgive you."

Adam jerks backwards. "You don't even know—you don't have any _idea._ " Kris is in his way so he lashes out without thinking, knocking Kris to the ground hard enough that the chains cut deeper than ever into his shoulders—a fact evidenced by a cry of pain.

The important thing is that Adam's path is clear and he's a Fallen angel so he shouldn't care, anyway. He should want to hurt, should kill Kris soon before anyone else gets their hands on him and before Kris says anything else about _saving._ Adam doesn't need to be saved. He's happy here. He's happy.

"Adam."

Adam turns to see Kris pushing himself up slowly, spitting blood on the floor and wiping it from his neck. "What?"

Kris looks up at him—pleading. "I have to leave," he says, like it's not impossible. "Before they come back. Come with me. Please. You don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not scared," Adam shouts, flames surging from the ground around him. "I'm where I want to be." He turns on his heel until he's facing the broken doorway. "I have things to do. I'm sure they'll come back soon. Fall, die, see if I care."

"I'll wait for you," Kris says. "I'll wait as long as I can before I have to leave."

Adam steps through the broken doorway and leans down to pick up the door. Unfortunately, this brings him eye to eye with Kris, who is still slumped on the floor, watching him. "Brad said I should say hi," Kris says softly. "If I saw you."

Adam slams the door back upright and there is a surge of fire across it as it fits itself back in place and the lock clicks.

Kris was lying, anyway. That's the only explanation that makes any sense.

*

Except, the more he thinks about it the less it makes sense. The obvious answer is to stop thinking but every time he tries to focus on torturing the latest raping scumbag to cross his path, he finds himself wondering.

Adam has always refused to torture anyone who doesn't deserve it. It was one of the conditions he laid down when he fell, sitting in a stinking alley on earth with a demon leaning over him, breathing hot iron breath against his skin until Adam could taste it.

He had made them promise that if they ever found Brad, Brad would be given whatever he asked for and Adam would be informed.

But he hadn't heard the name in years. Brad had never Fallen, no one had found him. Adam dreamt about him crawling the streets of the human world, starving on the streets and living as a human until his wings disappeared into his back for the last time. Adam had nightmares that one day he'd be walking past the line of new arrivals and see Brad as a human soul, head bowed, bound for the pits.

How would Kris know that name? Even if he had heard the story—and Adam can't imagine any angel would want to publicise that fuck-up—he wouldn't know that Bradley Bell liked to be called Brad. Angels don't shorten their names, not ever, (and Adam is not thinking about how Kris never cared about Adam not using Kristopher).

But Kris isn't going to Fall, he's going to die and Adam should just stop thinking about him at all. Maybe Kris found Brad's name in an old file or made it up and got lucky.

"Hey, angel," someone shouts, and Adam turns to see one of his underlings—a short stocky demon who's name Adam never bothered to learn—waving at him. "We've got video from Heaven for you to see."

When Adam first arrived, he had been shocked to his core to discover that the demons had spies in Heaven. He'd soon discovered that they were incapable of the imagination required to do anything at all useful with it, and stopped worrying. He kicks the soul he's torturing into the pit of eternal fire and flies up to the room where a group of demons are crowded around one tiny screen.

"It's the new Evening singer," Adam's demon explains. "Daniel. He does this scream—you have to see it to believe it."

"Why do they need a new Evening singer?" It had been months after his Fall before they'd replaced Adam—an angel called David had stepped in. One of the other Fallen had sent Adam a video. David was good—not as good as Adam, but good enough.

The demon looks sideways at him quizzically. "We caught the last one," it says.

Adam brushes this off without really thinking. "The singers are archangels. We could never hold one, they're far too—" he trails off as he realises the demon is still looking at him with an 'of course you know where the angel is, we chained him in your study' expression. Kris said so many times that he could just leave and when Adam mentioned that he didn't know who Kris was, Kris had acted like it was perfectly natural. Adam had always had to wake up early, he'd never hung around for the evening song and from the screen Adam can hear a horrible screaming.

He flies, kicking down his door for the second time in a day and landing on his feet, scanning the office to check that no one else has been here, Kris is still kneeling on the floor the way he always is, the way he should, head rising slowly with a smile.

"Why are you still here?" Adam demands. _Say it's because you're chained up, because the door's locked, because you sinned and you can't go home._

Kris meets his eyes. "I'm here to save you."

Adam shakes his head. "I fucked up, I sinned, they won't take me back. I'm here, I Fell, I can't be saved and now I've fucked you up and they're going to kill you and you should've told me you were an archangel."

That one comes as a surprise. Kris opens his mouth, then closes it slowly in favour of pushing himself to his feet. He touches the chains with one finger and they fall off him to the ground, his wings stretching out behind him, wide enough to fill the room. As Adam watches, every wound he's inflicted heals up leaving smooth, untarnished skin.

Kris walks forward, a soft gold glow spreading across his body as he reaches out a hand to touch Adam's cheek. "This isn't the sin you think it is. It's the same old demons with the same old tricks lying and making up their own rules, trying to drag us down." Again, he seems taller than he is so it seems surreal that he has to stand on his toes to press a kiss to Adam's lips. "I forgive you."

"I Fell," Adam whispers, stretching out his own black wings. Kris reaches out one hand to touch them and the weight drops off, as though all the soot that had built up was suddenly gone.

"So get back up."

Adam turns his head to see his wings, but the feathers are still as black as ever. "I don't—"

Kris turns slightly pink, reaching up to touch Adam's hair and pull him down into another kiss. "I like it better this way." He drops his hands, reaching out to take Adam's in a warm grip. "Come home with me?"

Adam needs a stronger word than 'yes' to reply, but in lieu of that he just closes his fingers tight on Kris's and drags him out into the cavern. Kris shines brighter than any of the fires, his white wings blinding to the masses after so long in this heap. He's larger than life, beautiful, and he sings the morning song in a soft voice that nevertheless echoes all around the pit.

Adam joins in, picking up where Kris loses the words, and they fly out together.  



End file.
